Appeal
from the United States District Court for the Southern
District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 9:16-cv-80802-RLR

Before
WILLIAM PRYOR and MARTIN, Circuit Judges, and HALL, [*] District Judge.

WILLIAM PRYOR, CIRCUIT JUDGE.

This
appeal requires us to decide whether a conservation
restriction imposed in 2013 on a property owned by the Frank
Sawyer Revocable Trust restarted the 12-year statute of
limitations of the Quiet Title Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2409a,
so that NE 32nd Street, LLC, as agent for the trust, can sue
to extinguish a spoilage easement granted to the federal
government in 1938. The trust owns a piece of land on the
Intracoastal Waterway in Florida. In 1938, its predecessor in
interest granted a spoilage easement that allows the
government to deposit dredged material on the property. And
in 2013, the government granted the trust a building permit
that imposes strict conservation requirements on the land.
Three years later, NE 32nd filed an action against the
government to extinguish the 1938 spoilage easement. It
argued that the 2013 permit restarted the statute of
limitations, but the district court disagreed and dismissed
the complaint. Because the statute of limitations bars a
challenge to the eighty-year-old easement and the 2013 permit
did not change the terms of that easement to the detriment of
the trust, we affirm.

I.
BACKGROUND

The
Frank Sawyer Revocable Trust owns a piece of property on the
Intracoastal Waterway in Florida. In 1938, its predecessor in
interest granted the United States "the perpetual right
and easement to deposit upon the [property] material that may
at any time be dredged in the construction and maintenance of
the . . . Waterway." Three quarters of a century later,
the government issued the trust a permit to fill and build on
part of the property. The 2013 permit also imposed strict
conservation restrictions on much of the property. For
example, the permit requires the trust to "maintain the
[relevant] areas . . . in their natural state in
perpetuity," forbids the "[d]umping or placing [of]
soil or other substance or material as landfill or [the]
dumping or placing of trash, waste[, ] or unsightly or
offensive material," prohibits many kinds of
"[s]urface use," and demands that "only clean
fill material" be used on the property.

Three
years later, NE 32nd Street, LLC, as agent for the trust,
sued the government under the Quiet Title Act, 28 U.S.C.
§ 2409a, and "request[ed] entry of a judgment . . .
cancelling the [1938 easement] and releasing [the property]
from all burdens and obligations created thereunder." NE
32nd underscored that when the government issued the 2013
permit with its strict conservation requirements, the
government "committed an act wholly inconsistent with
its future use and enjoyment of the [1938 spoilage
easement]." NE 32nd argued that this tension between the
1938 easement and 2013 permit required the district court to
extinguish the easement.

The
government moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction based on
a provision of the Act that states that an action against the
government "shall be barred unless it is commenced
within twelve years of the date upon which it accrued."
Id. § 2409a(g). It argued that this limitations
period is jurisdictional. The government maintained that the
challenged easement was granted in 1938 and that the
"predecessor in interest [of the trust] knew or should
have known of the claim of the United States [to the
easement] since [this date]."

The
district court initially denied the motion, but it later
granted a motion for reconsideration and dismissed the
complaint. It explained that the "adverse interests were
present in this case in 1938" and that the issuance of
the 2013 permit "did not abolish [the] preexisting
notice [that the trust had] of the United States'[s]
asserted interest."

The Act
provides that an action to quiet title brought by a private
party against the United States "shall be barred unless
it is commenced within twelve years of the date upon which it
accrued." 28 U.S.C. § 2409a(g). This limited
"waiver of sovereign immunity . . . is
jurisdictional," F.E.B., 818 F.3d at 685, and
we "must be careful not to interpret it in a manner that
would extend the waiver beyond that which Congress
intended," id. at 686 (quoting Block v.
North Dakota ex rel. Bd. of Univ. & Sch. Lands, 461
U.S. 273, 287 (1983)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Indeed, the Supreme Court has underscored that the Act
represents a "careful and thorough remedial scheme"
that litigants cannot "circumvent[] by artful
pleading." Block, 461 U.S. at 285 (quoting
Brown v. Gen. Servs. Admin., 425 U.S. 820, 833
(1976)).

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
running of the statute of limitations starts "on the
date the plaintiff or his predecessor in interest knew or
should have known of the claim of the United States." 28
U.S.C. &sect; 2409a(g). We define this "claim" in
terms of a property interest of the United States that is
actually "adverse[]" to the interest asserted by
the plaintiff. Werner v. United States, 9 F.3d 1514,
1519 (11th Cir. 1993). It is not enough that the government
asserts "some interest-any interest-in the
property." Id. Indeed, if the interests
asserted by the parties are capable of peaceful
coexistence-such as if the plaintiff asserts that he owns a
fee simple subject to an easement while the government claims
the complementary easement-then the clock will not run. In
contrast, adversity arises if ...

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